In the Hoagland section you'll see where he suggested Europa
might be a good place to look for life back in the early 1980's.
That's three for my friend Richard ; the Face of Mars, anomolies on the
Moon, and now life on Europa, and "0" for NASA !

CNI thanks AUFORA News Update for forwarding this item from Nando Times
(www.nando.net). To subscribe to AUFORA News, email dwatanab@acs.ucalgary.ca]

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, Calif. (Nov 13, 1996) -- Forget life on Mars. Scientists
gathered here say the best bet for life in the solar system is Europa, which
could have a hidden ocean 60 miles deep.

A moon of Jupiter, Europa is the only body in our solar system besides our
own that might have an ocean harboring life, say scientists at the Europa
Ocean Conference at the San Juan Capistrano Research Institute.

Many at the conference expressed enthusiasm for NASA's idea, unfunded so far,
of sending a robotic spacecraft to the moon to test the ocean theory. NASA is
looking for feedback on the concept.

"To find life, the best place in the solar system is the body that has an
ocean," said Eugene Shoemaker, a planetary geologist at the U.S. Geological
Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona.

"I think there's an even more important place to go than Mars. Europa is a
better bet and it's more accessible. If there's life there, it ought not be
hard to find."

So far, scientists have had to draw their conclusions about Europa from
Voyager spacecraft images sent back in 1979 and others returned this year by
the Galileo spacecraft. The photos show what could be a crust of icy slabs
sliding on a layer of slush or water.

If so, the ocean would contain about three times as much water as the Earth.
Water is a necessary ingredient for life. So too is heat, and scientists here
are debating the potential sources of heat and energy on Europa.

Heat-producing volcanoes could be erupting under water, much like the
underwater volcanic sites on Earth's seafloor that are home to heat-loving
bacteria.

But not everyone at the conference is convinced.

Some scientist suggest the photos indicate pockets of brine. They are
reserving judgment on a new mission to Jupiter until Galileo makes another
pass at Europa on December 19.

Others appear ready to go.

"Europa offers an attractive planetary target in the quest for
extraterrestrial life," wrote John Delaney, a marine geologist at the
University of Washington in Seattle, in an abstract released at the
conference.
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